38superman
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Posts posted by 38superman
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When you come to our club, all of our doors have the knob on the left side and you have to pull them towards you to open. My way of a little sweet revenge over all of the rightys. If they bitch, I tell them they can start building all the props and the discussion usually stops right there.
I like your attitude. Would love to shoot at your club some day.
T
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Did you win that day? Would it have changed how you felt about your shooting one way or another?
Kevin,
It was at Area 6 and I did win my class that day.
I was shooting "C" in limited with almost 40 others in that class and division.
To answer your question, I would have been happy with my performance no matter what the outcome.
I can say that with conviction because I know that I was at my best on that particular day.
However, there was a certain satisfaction in placing 1st.
I worked out at the gym for 2 months and lost 10 lbs. in preparation for that match.
Placing sort of validates your effort and lets you know that you are doing something right.
I was squadded with Juan Saldarriaga who is a friend and a bit of a rival.
Our skills are very evenly matched and we were pushing each other all day.
That only added to the fun.
He finished 2nd, but I assure you, if he had won I would have been happy for him.
(Just as I was when he kicked my tail a month earlier at the Ala sectional).
Tls
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John,
That is an interesting twist to the original question I asked.
I suppose those that always win are motivated my the same things as those that never do.
You just have to love the sport.
I may have given the impression that winning is all I care about and that's not the truth.
It is a pleasant side effect of what really motivates me.
I have had too many matches where I couldn't do anything right.
Penalty after penalty, spraying ammo all over the landscape, dropping mags, etc.
But there was one special day when I couldn't miss.
I got into a zone and shot better and faster than I ever thought possible.
I shot an entire match (12 stages) without a mike.
It was a magical, almost euphoric feeling.
I liked it.
I want more.
Tls
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I intend to develop a load with the Montana Gold 230 gr. bullet and I would like some input.
I know a lot of shooters like 320, titegroup, etc. but I don't like to match heavy bullets with powders that are quite that fast.
I have a pound of 330 and I would think it would be a good place to start, yet VV does not list it in their data.
Any suggestions?
Tls
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IPSC is great fun and I truly enjoy doing it.
But some of you guys talk as if there were something wrong with wanting to be good at it.
I was fortunate enough to be present at the Nationals when the super squad ran their last stage. It was a tight race with several guys in position to win at the end.
I'm sure they were having fun, but I'm also sure they were intensely focused on winning the match.
I stood next to Blake Miguez's mother as he made his run.
She had her fingers crossed and I don't believe she took a breath through the entire 40 second field course.
IPSC is sport.
It is competition.
I will quit worrying about winning when they quit keeping score.
Tls
"I don't like to lose" - James T Kirk
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When I started my IPSC career 18 months ago, my motivation was just to have a little fun.
However, once I got into it, my competitive nature soon began to take over.
I became dissatisfied with always finishing in the middle of the pack.
I started investing in better equipment, and working at improving my technique.
It is my ambition to some day win a major match and claim a championship.
That may be unrealistic as I was already a senior when I started.
There is a limit to how long you can compete against kids half your age.
I have yet to place higher than 27th in a major match, but my skills still continue to improve.
In other words, I can still cling to hope that my day will come.
Yet I wonder if I will be able to stay motivated once my shooting skills peak and begin to decline.
I see a lot of casual shooters that will never be competitive for one reason or another, but they continue to come out to the range.
Will the pure joy of the sport be enough to keep you going when your competitive edge fades away?
Tls
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This year,
Fla Open
Alabama State (Limited)
Area 6
USPSA Nationals
Georgia State
Mississippi Classic
I wanted to make as many matches as possible because I was in the point series.
Signed up for Indiana State and Tennessee State but had to withdraw.
That pesky job of mine kept getting in my way.
Tls
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Bruce,
Starline is a quality product.
Many of the guys I shoot with consider it to be the best there is.
Don't get me wrong, WW is a good product and I have used it for years.
However, when I tried Starline it shrank my groups by about 25% in my 40 cal limited gun.
BTW, I have about 200 rounds of once fired 10mm WW brass. Make offer
Tls
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Favorite Brass? Starline.
I have documented that using Starline brass improves the accuracy of my loads.
The conventional wisdom would be to use it in competition and load the cheaper stuff for practice.
However, I do it the other way around.
Most major matches are "lost brass".
Starline is great, but new brass is about $100/1000 (.10 cents ea).
I can't quite bring myself to leave the Starline on the ground.
I use it to practice and load develop so I can pick it up and reuse it.
I use WW for matches which I can get from a local range for about .02 cents each.
It's used brass but I clean it up and inspect it.
I only need to fire it once and then I can walk away from it.
Tls
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Duane,
I load the Montana Gold 200 gr fp to 1.210" OAL.
I can't give you load data on VV310 because I don't use it.
However, 7.1 grains of VV340 with this bullet gives great accuracy in both my 45's.
It chronos at around 865 fps which translates to about 173 power factor.
Tls
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Cuz,
I bought the gun from Speed Shooters Intl at the vendor tent during 2004 Nationals. It is the "California Legal" model.
My mags are STI tubes with Dawson +1 basepads.
FYI,
Mark Agerholm from the Infinity shooting team happened to be present during the purchase. He invited me to walk down to one of the near by ranges and try out my new gun.
Mark provided the ammo, and we both knocked down dozens of plates with the the greatest of ease.
He then picked up a fired 40 cal casing, walked down range and placed the piece of empty brass on a post.
He said "This gun is insanely accurate, ...watch this".
At a range I would estimate at about 20 yards, ( I could barely see the casing) Mark took aim and blasted the casing with a single shot.
I would not have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes.
I hope you enjoy your new pistol as much as I have mine.
It is my most prized possesion.
Tls
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David,
Just to add my voice to the chorus, Dawson, Bedell, Brazos and others all make fine guns.
However, I really love my SVI Infinity and I would not trade it for any gun you could name.
It is exceptionally accurate, runs flawlessly and has absolutely the best trigger I ever felt.
Furthermore, at $2200 it was a little less expensive that some of the others I considered.
Before you pony up that kind of money, consider all your options.
Tls
P.S. Speed Shooters International (speedshooter.com) normally stocks several configurations. No waiting.
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Just because a load barely makes major PF doesn't mean it cant be too hot in terms of pressure.
I never like fast powder / heavy bullet combinations. It is asking for trouble.
I would recommend going to a slower powder with a heavy bullet in the 45 ACP.
I like vv340 or AA No5 but if you don't want to go that slow try vv320.
If you insist on using 310 try a different primer such as Winchester Large Pistol or CCI 300.
Back off your load a bit and work back up to 4.3 gr.
If the different primers flatten, you may be treading on thin ice with pressure.
Are you tampering with the flash holes on the brass?
Remember, there are dozens of factors that can affect pressure.
Temperature.
Chamber tolerance
Lot to lot variations in primers
Manufacturing tolerances in bullets and brass.
The list goes on and on.
Err on the side of caution.
Tls
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I find this very interesting because it is almost the same load I shoot in my SVI, except I shoot a heavier bullet and longer oal.
It is a load suggested to me by Mark Agerholm from the Infinity shooting team.
200 gr Montana Gold at 1.175" oal.
5.4 gr. Viht 340
WSP primer
Winchester or Starline Brass
This load is very accurate, burns clean and (by my CED chrono) runs at about 860 fps for a 172 power factor.
I try to hold my pf to at least 170 to account for variance in temps, different chronographs, etc.
This same load chronographed at 875 last year at the Fla Open and came up at 826.5 at Nationals. That is a swing from 175 pf down to 165.3 pf.
Allow yourself a litte margin for error or you will run into trouble sooner or later.
K'm Plaa
Tls
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I recently bought a speed holster (in LH) for my P14 from Chris Patty at CPWSA.com
I am not sure about the manufacturer because it was not marked on the packaging.
The only marking on the holster is a logo I did not recognize.
However, it appears to be the same holster sold by Shooters Connection labeled "SpeedSec".
The make and model I bought was designed specifically for the Para and seems to work well.
During my first practice session with the new holster, I ran about 200 rounds doing bill drills.
My times for first shot from a holstered position seemed to improve with the new rig.
Now that I am getting comfortable with it, I would recommend it highly.
Tls
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If your main concern is moving up in classification, the best way to do that is work on your fundamentals and eliminate penalties.
Magazine capacity is not a factor in most classifier stages.
However, overall scores on major matches do count as classifers.
In a match anything can happen.
I'm a firm believer that even 1 or 2 extra rounds can and will make a difference.
For example:
While shooting a long field course in lim10, I failed to notice a mag falling off my belt.
I went to make my last reload and my belt was empty.
I grabbed a spare mag from my hip pocket, but it was only a 7 round mag leaving me two rounds short of finishing the stage.
I have had stages where I took extra shots at swingers or steel and ran the gun dry at the end with one popper still standing.
This happened because I didn't remember to use my "Barney" bullet and began the stage with 19 rounds instead of 19+1.
If every round didn't count, the open crowd would be shooting 40's instead of loading 38 supers to the extreme so they can stuff the big sticks with a few extra rounds.
When it comes to mag capacity, size does matter.
Tls
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As I stated when I started this thread, I have never complained about a stage design until I encountered one that forced me into a very unhappy choice.
1. Allow yourself to be forced into an extremely awkward off balance position and risk falling down with a hot weapon.
or
2. Shoot the target weak hand even though this was not part of the stage description or intent, and change hands (twice) with a hot gun while on the move.
I don't think its unreasonable to expect the following:
Stage designers should recognize that there are two groups of shooters based on strong hand/weak hand. Its a fact of life.
Almost any target will favor one group or the other...no problem.
However, all targets should be reasonably accessable to all shooters without anyone having to shoot backward and aim with a mirror.
TLS
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I have noticed a trend lately that is a bit disturbing to me and I think it bears some discussion.
IPSC shooters are divided into two groups. Not by rule but by nature.
You are either left or right handed.
In the course of shooting around barricades and other obstacles, some stages will favor one group and disadvantage the other.
As a left handed shooter, I see no reason to complain about this.
Sometimes it works against me but sometimes it works in my favor.
However, it does disturb me that in some of the stages I have encountered lately, the bias was so exteme that it was next to impossible to shoot at certain targets with the stong hand.
One stage at nationals was particularly bad because the fault line coming off the barricade was at a very shallow angle forcing a leftie to reach way out and around to engage the target.
I made an off the cuff remark to the RO that about the only way I could shoot that target was to ricochet a round off the wall.
His reply was "tough sh*#. Theres nothing in the rule book about being left handed".
When shooting the stage I did manage to hit the target but almost fell in the process. The time I lost trying to recover my balance cost me.
My feeling is that if a stage is designed with a bias this exteme it becomes a safety issue.
There are some very general statements in the rule book that might apply to this but they are not specific enough to address this particular issue.
TLS
With No Hope Of Ever Winning... Would You Still Compete?
in USPSA/IPSC Shooting
Posted · Edited by tlshores
The focus of this thread seems to have become soley about "winning".
That was part of my original question but not really what was on my mind when I asked it.
I was thinking more about how much I respect and admire the seniors, super seniors and the shooters with physical handicaps.
Some of them are excellect competitors that regularly shoot circles around me.
But time takes its toll on all of us and like aging athletes in any sport, sooner or later every one of us will face a decision.
Carry on, or head for the recliner to practice speed draws with the remote.
At the tender young age of 53 I already know the joy of having my eyesight deteriorate year by year.
I know the fatigue at the end of a 12 stage match when your tail is dragging like you just ran a triathalon and your lower back feels like a mule kicked you.
(At that point somebody else can bend over and reset the steel, I'll just paste).
Is it just me or does everybody have a bottle of Aleve in their range bag?
Whatever it is that drives those guys to keep going, I only hope I have a little of it in me.
Tls